Holding On By the Collar
by Night's Flower
Summary: After removing the hogyoku and before ordering Gin to kill her. "Your life is so meaningless to them...join me" A moment between Aizen and Rukia, in which Rukia experiences his mental torment and has to find resolve when everything is falling apart.


Aizen studied her idly, as if a thought had just occurred to him. His eyebrows creased slightly, glasses shining with an idea he spoke. "Why don't you join me?" he asked softly.

"What are you saying?" she had intended to hiss, but it came out much more pathetic than that. A whimper from a frightened child, a horrified plea from a peasant. A warm smile overcame his features, soft, as if it had been molded there by the kindest of beings. But his eyes were blank, eerily and utterly void of anything resembling human sympathy.

"I should be asking you that, Rukia" his voice was warm, but it had the edge of a reaper's blade. It sent chills down Rukia's spine. A choked sound escaped her, she had the feeling that a blade had suddenly slid down her throat. The reiatsu was crushing her soul, her spirit torn from the abuse it has been through in the past months. But her heart still shuddered to look into his eyes, this fear was entirely its own, it had nothing to do with reiatsu.

Rukia managed a shaky scowl, neck craning uncomfortably as he held her by the collar like a doll to be tossed aside. Her neck burned and itched uncomfortably, the wretched collar wasn't nearly as much of a concern as it had been previously. Her sensory focus was entirely on Aizen. His long and strangely delicate fingers on her neck, his predatory eyes sliding over her form, Rukia thought that she may even be able to feel his breath as it entered and left his lungs. Her body was stiff, unable to move because of the monstrous reiatsu in the area, but Rukia thought that she would not be able to move otherwise. Her soul ached with pain. Pain of being abused by the tower, of being torn open, pain from seeing her friends fall. The bodies of Ichigo and Renji, her saviors, her friends, littered the hard ground, the forms of their attackers and her soon to be killers surrounded them.

Aizen's hand brushed her throat gently as he held her, as he would a particularly appealing apple that he was considering to rip from the tree. His fingers were cool against her throat, and she briefly wondered if he would rip it out. And Rukia knew that a mere whim was all that was needed to send her blood splaying onto the ground. He could kill her, and it would be easier than for him to keep her alive. That was how easy it would be to snap her neck, to crack her skull, to shred her lungs or to rip out her thrumming heart. Rukia's skin was chilled, but she felt as if she were being smothered, the heat of the sokyoku still lingering on her singed soul, and it haunted her now. She was smoldering underneath her skin, feverish with uncertainty.

Her soul was of ice and snow, and had she been any other she may have confused Aizen's actions to be of the same element. But no, she knew that he was of darkness and deceit and the lack of living flesh. Of decaying and rotting, confusion, and a sadistic love of utter control. He was of lies. And his rotting presence swam above her skin, it's claws brushing along it like flies over a dying animal, waiting for it to be a corpse. Like maggots burrowing into flesh softened by death.

Rukia shuddered and shut her eyes. The fingers lingered, brushing over her eyelids. Tempting them to_ open, to look at me I am nothing but sweet smelling rot, a puppeteer with strings made of agony and screams…and once you see me I will devour you_. A growing doubt, a lingering fear that belongs only to you, but the power over it belongs only to him_. I can use you_, it whispers, and it grins with a mouth filled only with pretty lies.

"I could give you greatness" Aizen breathes in her ear, he is so close that Rukia can smell him. He smells-not of blood or putrid death like she expected-but of books, wood, ink, and grass, all mixed until they are no longer discernible but are still pleasant to the senses, still familiar. Rukia gags on the scent, and feels his breath slide down her ear, feels it drip down her neck. His words dribbling into her blurry thoughts and the ooze of sweet words continue.

"They betrayed you, all of them. You're life is so meaningless to them" he continues, a harder note in his voice, but still gentle. Rukia shuts her eyes, not wanting to see the truth in a man so full of lies. "You must be angry" he comforts, sympathy and understanding with a tint of empathetic pain. He follows the accusation with kind words of reassurance "You should be. I know what you're worth Kuchiki Rukia, and it is so much more than this. Do you not wish to show them?"He asks with a curious tone, as if puzzled why she has not come to the conclusion on her own.

He leaves the question to wind itself around her mind, waits until it strangles every other lingering thought, until it is the only thing that consumes her reality that suddenly only constitutes of Aizen and his words.

"Come with me, we will show them together" He soothed softly, pulling her along, his hand now warm and she can imagine it sliding down her cheek in soft admiration and affection, her features tear stained and sob ridden. She saw herself, saw herself helpless beneath his corrupting touch.

Rukia squirmed her way back to her reality, escaped the suffocating world of his offers with a blink of a watering eye.

"…No"

she spoke softly, her voice shaking even when in her throat. While her voice was weak her amethyst eyes glinted with the edge of a sword she still carried in spirit.

Calmer she repeated the word, shards of ice embedded in her resolve. "No" Aizen looked mildly amused, he smiled. Rukia knew he would wear that smile even if he was to be bathed in blood and entrails and the knowledge drove a stake of instinctual terror through her bones.

"A pity" no longer did his voice carry even a lingering trace of kindness, only cruel indifference.

Turning slightly, he cast his eyes on Gin. "Kill her" he said simply. A twitch of his lips as his eyes slid back to her let Rukia know that this was his last sadistic act of her torture. She feared Aizen, yes, but she was terrified of Ichimaru. Ichimaru who seemed to know every dark crevice of her mind, knew how to nurture her fears and to shatter her resolve. Rukia hardly remembered to breathe.

His blade would now cross the last frontier, her body. Her heart would be pierced by his blade, just as how his words had shattered her mind.

Rukia slid her tired eyes over to the quickly approaching blade, ready for the death that seemed to have been waiting to claim her for so long.

Rukia closed her eyes.

A/N: And we all know what happens next, Byakuya comes in and saves the day. Don't know why I wrote this. The idea of Aizen having offered Rukia to betray the Soul Society is one I've had for a really long time. The original idea wasn't like this at all though, but I like it. And it seems like something Aizen would do, even if he never actually intended to do it. I don't think I really captured Rukia very well here, or Aizen's creepiness. But I tried. And I wanted to try getting into a more abstract form of writing for once, so this was somewhat of an experiment. Also, it was just one of those one-shots that wrote themselves. When those come along it's best not to question it. I cannot tell you how many stories have been lost because they slipped down to the crevices of my mind only to never be seen again. I can only drag out words and phrases from those stories. I've written many of them in my head and been unable to get them onto paper because it's gone. So I didn't want to let that happen again, especially since I've had a bit of writing block lately…It probably should be edited more but I can't get myself to do it.

Lame title is lame

Review please


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